Main Menu

On Inami Mahiru and the Cast of Working!!’s Threat Level to Society (3/3)

There is one more big factor that’s very important in proving Inami is ONLY AS STRONG AS A YOUNG BOY. Actually, I could have probably just posted this one thing and nothing else and it’d prove my point, it’s that important.

Once Aoi Yamada’s brother is introduced, Inami attacks him on the spot thinking he’s a mugger. He quickly and easily stops her – the reason given being because he is “good at karate”. Keep in mind he’s just a kid going to a club for it at school, he’s not some man beast 300 pound defensive lineman who is also great at defensive martial arts. He’s a normal boy. The fact he can stop her so amazingly easily, and even hurt her (she says ow quite often when he stops her) in doing so, proves she is far from strong compared to boys her age, let alone adults. She is just strong for a high school girl – which would put her at the strength of a weaker high school boy. Keep in mind Takanashi has also admitted in that same scene he entirely holds himself back against her because of moral issues – the same goes for the rest of the male cast. She’s never a serious enough threat for any of them to fight back against or drastically defend themselves in a way that might harm her.

Now, what everything boils down to is a few key points;

1. Inami is not that dangerous. Her strength is that of a typical young boy, even her hardest hit wouldn’t do anything aside bruise you if you’re very easily bruised. Everything else in the show is proven, within the show itself, to be for comedic effect. She does everything she possibly can to keep others informed about her condition, away from any situations she’d end up hitting them. On top of that, she works extremely hard at fixing her problem and has made huge improvements on it throughout the series. And, once again, she only has the strength of a typical boy, even if she were to hurt you it’d just be an “ow” situation, not a hospital visit. The show proves this time and time again. They exaggerate her strength and then, when hit, nobody shows any sign of damage aside not liking being punched in the face – she is factually not dangerous to anyone. The biggest problem is her fear of men, which is a very life-ruining problem for her and nobody else.

2. She is one of the most important aspects of the series as she carries the only semblance of plot progression and character development. The entire cast is great, I love them all, but without Inami the show would be basically the first 3 episodes of Lucky Star over and over again. I like Lucky Star too – but even they realized that was going badly and changed the style of the show because of it. Without her the show would just go nowhere. Sure, there are other things to build on – but that NEVER HAPPENS, and even if it did, it’d be extremely generic and end up changing the overall style of the show and personalities of the characters. With Inami there, the focus can remain more open while still giving itself an actual sign of development and progression. You get everyone’s little stories that if they were focused on would become more tiresome than marathoning Kimi ni Todoke and every single joke would become stale in a matter of an episode or two. With Inami you get a break from the constant same-jokes and slow-progress that everything else in the show has, making the entire series better for it by putting it at a good pace with well thought out breaks.

3. She is canonically one of the more safe and by far the most caring of the entire cast. If she isn’t your type, fine, but if you hate her for anything aside her simply not being to your tastes you’re objectively wrong. There is not a single aspect in terms of within the show (her personality, attributes, qualities, way shes acts, etc) nor in terms of her effect on the series that are bad or detrimental in any way. She is, objectively, a neutral character at worst. There is nothing factual or canonical about her that has any negative consequence for the series one way or another. Actually, out of the entire cast, she is one of the only characters with POSITIVE aspects in terms of helping the show’s overall quality; a developing love story, progress on her androphobia, and of course her interactions with others helping progress their stories as well. You could literally remove ANYONE ELSE in the cast and the show wouldn’t change much at all – but remove Inami and it’s a whole different ball game.

4. Everyone working at Wagnaria and most of the people involved with it in some way or another all have issues. This is a town of fucking sociopaths and general crazies – but in actuality everyone is just normal. It’s an exaggerated view of people; everyone has their problems, this just blows them up to a bigger scale to see how life would be if those things that are in everyone a little bit were one of the biggest things about them. It’s the type of shit you think about at school, work, or just while people watching. That’s all this is, a look at people and an imaginatively blown out of proportion idea of how they would be if what one of their most notable aspects became ten times bigger. Inami is not literally crushing concrete pillars, Yachiyo is not literally threatening the life of Otoo with a katana, Kyoko is not literally eating sweets constantly and gaining no weight outside of her breasts. It’s just for entertainment value.

5. Less directly related to Inami, but in general locking people up who have non-threatening psychological disorders is fucking stupid. Just stop even treating this as a point to make against her or anyone else, it’s something you’d hear on Fox news and is not only proof you have no clue what you’re talking about but shows what a piece of shit you are.

————-

Overall, Inami isn’t anything but the target people who are upset their favorite isn’t in the spotlight more often. She’s a sad victim of retarded people tossing blame onto anything but the actual issue (themselves) and not wanting to admit it’s just a simple issue of “I like someone else more so I want them to be the lead”. There is not a single thing about Inami that makes her a bad character or a detrimental existence to Working!! or to her fellow co workers and friends at Wagnaria. Get over it.

—————

As always happens when I try writing this, I’m not entirely happy with how I wrote this out – but this is the third or fourth time I’ve tried so I’m going with it. If there’s anything you want to add – or any points you want to make against what I’ve said – go ahead and say so in the comments and I’ll be sure to respond at some point and maybe edit some stuff into the actual posts as well.

10 responses to “On Inami Mahiru and the Cast of Working!!’s Threat Level to Society (3/3)”

It was good writing but I can’t say that I agree with you. I still hate Inami (for various reasons that have hardly anything to do with the reasons listed), and unfortunately this only made me dislike the rest of the characters. I still disagree, however I think your work was good and that there aren’t enough people who can try to get their point across without cussing (which is probably why so many people do so in the comments). Even if you did cuss to get your point across, at least the entire work was not an essay of rude words.
I respect that you tried to get your point across in a well written argumentive essay. Even though I don’t agree with about 1/3-1/2 of it. But at least that means that I did agree with some of it.

I get what you’re saying about the posts, and that’s fine – plus, like I said in the first part if you hate her for OTHER reasons I totally have no issue with that at all. It’s just the people who hate her for these objectively inaccurate reasons – objectively inaccurate as in they clash with the official canon and events held in the show (such as her ‘never making progress’ for example, which is proven wrong each and every episode throughout all 3 seasons) that this is really aimed at. Opinions are fine, but such a thing as “invalid opinions” exists when you have opinions either based on nothing or that contradict facts, and MOST – not all, certainly – just most of the people who openly hate on Inami do so with invalid opinions.

However, unrelated to that the idea of vulgar and crude language as a negative thing is something I’ll never understand. Language was created by man as a method to convey emotions, feelings, and thoughts. Words should be chosen to be as clear, concise, and as fully expressive as possible – they aren’t a way to convey your intelligence or status, but a way to get information across (including emotion). Without saying “fuck” or whatever else the feeling I have behind the thing I’m saying is not being conveyed on the same level as if I said nothing or some word 90% of people don’t know. So-called “ignorant words” and “bad words” are actually the basis of the most proper form of any language. They tell someone clearly your thoughts along with your emotion behind those thoughts. Using “big” or “smart” words is actually counter productive and the antithesis of why language exists as it clashes with the idea of providing the most clear and easily understood form of your thoughts or feelings (again, the things language was made to convey in the first place) by making it overly complex or convoluted, and not using those OR cuss words is completely acceptable but I’m the type who prefers to get my emotions and the strength of my words across to the listener/reader rather than to beat around the bush and give a convoluted or not fully clear message. Basically, I try not to use “rude words” in the way you’re referring to (rudely – at least not in most contexts anyway, but even if I’m simply insulting someone I choose those words because they get across my thoughts on them more clearly even then – like “dumbshit” instead of “idiot”, the latter is a stronger feeling), but as the clearest most understandable form of language and feelings available. I appreciate language and take it seriously (not to say I don’t make a million grammar mistakes though), I don’t abuse it and misuse it to try and appear intelligent, intellectual, or special – I could, I know all sorts of big ‘smart’ head-up-my-own-ass words and how to properly use them, but doing so goes against everything language was created for so I try my best to avoid them unless they happen to really be the most suitable clear word for what I’m saying. Obviously if someone sits there doing nothing but spouting vulgarities they’re being retarded, but if you can work ‘cuss words’ into an otherwise proper and coherent line of thought it can double or even triple the amount of information you are actually getting across to the person reading or listening to you without taking away from any of it.

Anyway, this is a long 3 part post so I certainly appreciate that you took the time to read it all even while disagreeing with most of it. I’d like to do more things like this – obviously not all about Inami, but just in general about various topics or characters and such. Last time I tried though my entire thing was deleted by wordpress due to the ‘new’ wordpress post writing page storing your draft on your browser rather than on their servers.

I think the only reason people aren’t being hospitalized by Inami is precisely because this is meant to be comedy anime instead of something darker. If you have ever been punched in the face, you would know that the nose is very delicate. An average teenage girl or a 10 year old boy can definitely give an adult male a broken nose.

Despite the lamentations of Al Davis, this was a great three-parter. I really liked how you brought out the true theme of the show, which is a study on abnormal pathologies and how they can/do integrate into society with varying degrees of success. Although I agreed with you from the start, I thought your argument was very persuasive, even for those on the fence about this much reviled character.

I don’t think many people really notice the show is more than just another comedy SoL, which is kind of retarded as that’s not even seeing everything on the surface level, let alone anything deeper. It’d be like watching NHK and just seeing it as a black comedy with quirky characters while entirely missing it’s commentary on society and people suffering from severe social phobias.

You could not have been more wrong about the worst girl in the show, she is just a bitch craving attention and pity from others because her retarded ass can’t think for herself.

>inb4 B-BUT MUH SHITTY ARTICLE

Im right. I just go over your head because you are a complete idiot.

Debate me bitch, i dare you. Tell me why and while you are at it find someone who cares about your retarded blog. You cant and wont because you’re an attention whoring bitch yourself.

I live in california and visit Japan every damn summer. I watched more anime than you can imagine and have written several notes on each fucking show I’ve seen. I read anime articles nonstop and was even offered a job at a company my Japanese friend works at but turned it down because they know nothing about anime just like you. So why dont you fuck off before i make you cry kid.

You up bitch. Give me your shit response so i can lol and embarss you some more.

Go ahead PRETEND to be an unbiased fan. You’re pathetic.

If you want to challenge my opinion than challenge it but how about you do it correctly. Give me reasons, why im wrong (you dont have any) Are you a 12 kid or something?